


Interregnum (The World on Fire Remix)

by igrockspock



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Play, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Legal Advice, Oral Sex, POV: Blind Character, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Remix, Wall Sex, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after SHIELD falls, Matt Murdock finds an unexpected visitor in his apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interregnum (The World on Fire Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [azephirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Interregnum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4058326) by [azephirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin). 
  * In response to a prompt by [azephirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



> I'm pretty sure I took some big liberties with the MCU timeline when I pretended that The Winter Soldier happened a few months after the end of Daredevil season 1. I liked th emotional arc that set up for both characters though, so I went with it.
> 
> Azephirin, I've loved your work from my first days in fandom. Although Matt/Natasha never occurred to me before, now I'm in love with the idea of them together. Thank you for the opportunity to play with your glorious work!

On Fridays, Matt takes the slow way home from work. His cane ticks steadily against the sidewalk, and he listens to pedestrians scurry out of its path. The streets are crowded, but the cane creates an empty bubble around him. When he was a child, he went to a support group for the newly blinded. A woman complained she felt isolated on the streets; an older man told her to be grateful people got out of her way. After Stick left, Matt learned to listen -- not as an exercise, not to make himself a weapon, but to remember he was not actually alone.

The woman who'd ducked into a doorway to let him pass is wearing too much perfume, and it's making her sniffle. Her heart is beating wildly. Matt guesses it's a first date.

The footsteps ahead of him shuffle against the pavement, and Matt hears joints grinding against each other. He inhales. The scent of old-fashioned cologne suggests that it's a man, maybe someone close to the age his father would be if he had lived. Next to the man is a fast, light heartbeat and through a curtain of fire Matt thinks he glimpses a little girl walking next to the old man.

He's almost at the end of the block now; he knows it by the sudden aroma of sugar wafting out of the cupcake shop. He doesn't like it. The scent is cloying, and the Hell's Kitchen he'd grown up in didn't contain trendy bakeries.

He stops at the curb and waits for the sound of traffic to be replaced by footfalls walking across the intersection. On the other side of Thirty-Eighth Street, the sugar-sweet aroma of the cupcakes fades into the reassuring smell of yeast and rising bread. It's after five; Mrs. Muñoz will be mixing dough for tomorrow's empanadas. He's tempted to stop inside her shop, especially when the spicy tang of chorizo hits his nose. She's been giving him free empanadas ever since he helped her with a zoning issue, and her daughter has a pretty voice.

But another smell catches his attention just before he reaches for the door. It's hair dye. Bleach, actually. The smell had been unmistakable ever since Foggy's brief experiment with platinum blonde their junior year. Matt swivels his head, looking for the source. It's not from the street. It's higher up and further away, like it's coming from an apartment at the end of the block, which would mean it's in his building.

Normally, he would shrug it off -- the FIT students on the floor beneath him change their hair once a week, after all -- but every radio and television he's passed has been tuned to CNN. The whole way home from work, he's heard snatches about a terrorist agency called SHIELD, and the Russian spy who revealed its secrets on the internet.

He wonders if he has a visitor.

***

"Natasha," he says when he opens the door.

Given the way he's been living his life, it's a risk to assume that a steady heartbeat and the scent of hair dye belong to an old friend. He makes the assumption anyway and hears her smile.

"You knew I was here," she says, not sounding particularly surprised.

"I smelled the hair bleach from the end of the block," he says, and leaves out the part about HYDRA and SHIELD. He knows what it's like to be a suspected terrorist; he doubts Natasha likes it any better than he did.

"Do you want some tea?" she asks.

"I thought that was my line," he says. She is his guest, after all. 

"I picked your lock. A cup of tea is the least I can offer," she says, sliding off the couch. Her footsteps are light on the floor.

"Milk, no sugar," he says, tucking his cane in the corner by the door.

He hears Natasha huff. They've done this often enough for her to remember how he takes his tea -- and for him to keep a few packets of her favorite Earl Gray in the cupboard, just in case she shows up at his door. While she pours the tea, he changes clothes, leaving the door open just wide enough for her to see if she wants to. But if she's watching, neither her breath nor her heartbeat change. She's not here for _that_ then, at least not right away.

"I'm glad you came," he says, crossing the room and holding out a hand for the tea. He could find it himself, if he wanted to, but it's easier just to let her press the warm mug into his outstretched hand.

"You should know people are looking for me," she says. "Whatever's leftover from SHIELD and HYDRA, maybe CIA and Homeland Security too."

"I assumed," Matt says, grinning. "And here I thought my life was exciting, and the only people looking for me are the NYPD and a few underworld thugs."

Natasha smiles again, and underneath, he hears the faint creak of relaxing muscles. He hopes she didn't doubt her welcome -- but then, they're both objectionable people, at least to an extent. It doesn't pay to assume they're welcome anywhere.

"You could claim whistleblower protection under the Dodd-Frank Act," he says, just in case she needs a lawyer. Of course, she knows Tony Stark; she probably has access to a heftier legal team than the Avocados at Law.

"Edward Snowden disagrees," Natasha says, a trace of a smile in her voice. "And anyway, I didn't come here for legal advice."

"What did you come here for?" he asks.

"A soft place to fall," she says, her voice dark and husky with emotions Matt can't place.

It's mind bending, after these past few months, that anyone would think of him as a refuge; between the fight with Foggy, Claire getting kidnapped, and Mrs. Cardenas' murder, he'd been thinking of himself less as a safe haven and more as the rocks innocent ships crashed against in the night. He shifts closer to Natasha, just enough to feel her heat radiating against his hip, and he's happy when she doesn't move away.

***

"Your walls have new holes," Natasha says over a dinner of Tibetan take-away. 

"I had a visit from an old friend," he says, letting their knees bump under the countertop.

" _That_ kind of friend, huh?" Natasha says. He hears her wine glass scrape along the counter, listens to her take a drink. "I think I have a few hundred of those now. I saw them all last week."

Her voice is low and even, with dark undercurrents that she can't disguise, or isn't trying to. He hears muscle shifting over bone and guesses she might have smiled half-heartedly. It's hard to say. He drifts a hand across her shoulder, which is the kind of gesture you have to make when you can't reliably say if your facial expressions communicate sympathy or not. He lets it rest there for a second before he moves up to inspect her new haircut. The freshly cut ends are soft against the pad of his thumb.

"Feels pretty even," he says. "Did you do it yourself?

"It's not terrible, for a self-inflicted haircut," she says. "I've got some excellent hipster glasses. Horn rims. And it's a damn shame you can't see my ass in these skinny jeans."

She's smiling for real now, and Matt can hear the message underneath: everything is horrible, and she's surviving anyway.

They've known each other for too long to bother with a fake argument over who should take the bed. She slides beneath the silk sheets with a contented hum, and Matt wonders where she's been sleeping lately, although he doesn't ask. He can imagine.

"There's a box of burner phones under the bed if you need one," he says, sliding into the bed beside her.

"An whole box, Murdock? I'm impressed," she says.

"It was cheaper to buy in bulk," he says. He'd considered developing a network of informants, like Sherlock Holmes' irregulars, but he'd never quite figured out who he could trust and he's not sure he should take crime-fighting advice from Arthur Conan Doyle anyway. The important thing is that there's a spare phone for Natasha if she needs one.

Natasha falls asleep quickly -- she's a big believer in getting rest when it's available -- and Matt lays awake for awhile, listening to the slow and steady rhythm of her heart. When he wakes up in the morning, she's curled against his side and his arm is draped over her waist.

***

Natasha joins him when he suits up for his night job. He'd expected she would, though he pretended otherwise, just for the pleasure of antagonizing her. 

They're getting dressed in the living room when he smells gunpowder and freezes.

"I don't do guns," he says.

"I don't do dying," Natasha says without a second's pause.

Matt hesitates, thinking of Stick and soldiers and the invisible war he refuses to fight in. Beside him, Natasha's still moving; he hears a safety clicking and metal sliding across leather, and knife blades singing in the air.

"You really don't think I could just follow you?" she asks, somehow sounding impatient and indulgent at the same time.

"Fine," Matt mutters. He knows Natasha doesn't kill for frivolous reasons; disposing of bodies is impractical, and whatever she might want to claim, she _does_ have a soul. And anyway, he's far too human to resist the allure of a beautiful woman fighting at his side.

The fight is a good one, the air alive with the sound of cracking teeth and the smells of sweat and blood, all the better because he doesn't have to pretend not to enjoy it. They are weapons, both of them, and they will not apologize for relishing the purpose for which they were forged. 

When he hears sirens wailing in the distance, he touches Natasha's arm. She lands one last kick in the head, and they run over the rooftops, leaving the shattered remnants of a separatist militia behind them. There is no question of how the night will end; fighting and fucking are what they do, and there's no mistaking the way Natasha's breathing quickens when they cross his threshold. 

She closes the door at the same time he slams her against the wall. Her teeth scrape against his bottom lip as she pulls his head down into a kiss. He strips off his gloves; she snaps his belt open and slides her hand against his cock. When he hears her pants hit the floor, he lifts her up against the wall and she wraps her legs around his waist. The scent of her arousal is heavy in the air, and Matt doesn't need to touch her to know how wet she is -- not that that stops him from shoving two fingers deep inside her. She gasps against his neck, her breath sending little waves of sensation down his skin. When he pushes his cock inside her, it's over fast. She clenches around him so tightly he has to thrust as hard as he can to even move. Her fingers scrabble against his armor, and the vibrations rippling down his back push him over the edge as she moans her own release into his ear.

Afterward, they lean against the wall together, panting. Natasha pushes his helmet off so she can run her fingers through his hair -- and Jesus, had they had sex with that thing on? _That_ must have looked weird.

Natasha laughs against his hear. "Don't move for awhile. My knives are all over the floor."

He leans back against the wall, still breathing hard, and listens as Natasha collects her weapons. He counts six knives, two more than he thought she'd hidden away. Maybe they can spar later, if she stays long enough. Foggy will ask questions about the bruises, but it would be good for him: Natasha was the one who'd taught him how to get out of Stick's hold after all these years.

After they've stowed their weapons and taken a shower -- they both fit, but only barely -- they slide between the sheets. Natasha lets him explore her skin, looking for new scars. She's laconic about them, but Matt knows she'd prefer her skin smooth and unblemished. For convenience, she says: it's harder to seduce a mark if you have to explain bullet holes. He thinks the truth is that the scars remind her of the things she's done, but he can't say for sure. Knowing someone is lying isn't the same thing as knowing the truth.

And anyway, he _likes_ Natasha's scars; they make her interesting to touch, more interesting than anyone he's ever known. The one on her shoulder is new, still more a wound than a scar. He traces his fingers over the jagged edges and hears her hiss so faintly no one else would hear.

"DC?" he asks, thinking of the news reports.

She nods and says, "I nodded."

He knows -- he'd felt her head move up and down his chest -- and she knows that he knows. He likes that she narrates anyway. It's easier not to have to comb through so many sensations if he doesn't want to. Foggy doesn't understand that yet. 

Now Natasha's careful fingers are tracing over his skin. She doesn't stop at the big scars on his chest. She'd found out about those a few months ago, when she invited him to stay with her at the Waldorf Astoria.

"My mark is gone," she'd said. "Might as well get some use out of the room."

Now Natasha's exploring his skin, and her fingers pause at a cluster of burn marks on his wrist. He'd taken off his gloves to inspect something, and then there had been an incident with a ninja and a blow torch. All in all, it could have been much worse, but she clucks her tongue and pulls him more tightly against her anyway. He goes along with it -- her bare skin and taut muscles feel so _good_ against him -- and buries his nose against her neck so that he can't smell anything but her. She laughs a little at that --- she's always claiming he's a ridiculous person -- but she relaxes against him, and he knows that she likes it too.

He traces his fingers up her neck till he finds her hair. Fresh from the shower, it's thick and extra wavy, and he hopes there's no flat iron hidden away in her suitcase; her hair is much more interesting to touch this way.

"I liked it better red," he says, twining a curl around his finger. It's irrational, but also true.

"I did too," Natasha says, "but we don't always get to to be who we want to be."

He knows the truth of that, but Natasha buries whatever he might have said in a long, slow kiss.

***

They have sex again in the morning, slowly this time, the way Matt likes it best. Natasha's tracing her fingernails down his ribs, the pressure just firm enough not to tickle, and then she climbs on top of him and slides her tongue over his nipple. He can't help but arch up into the sensation. He can feel his nipple hardening and pebbling under her tongue, and the flick of her teeth against the tender skin makes him gasp. He's hard now -- it never takes long -- and Natasha grinds down against him, making him clench his fingers into her back. Her stomach is lying against his cock, and and every breath she takes reverberates across the head and down the shaft all the way to his balls. He could come just from that, and maybe Natasha wants him to, but he doesn't want it to be over quite so fast. With his last ounce of self-discipline, he twines his fingers into her hair and gently pulls her head closer to his.

"Stop," he says. "I want to put my mouth on you."

Natasha gasps at that. He feels the muscles of her abdomen contract against his cock, and he flips her over hastily before the sensation can bring him closer to the edge. She lifts her hips obediently when he tugs on them, and he slides a pillow beneath her and parts her thighs with his hands. The smell of her forces him to stop and breathe in deep. He rubs her thighs lightly with his thumbs, savoring the feeling of taut muscles beneath smooth skin. Really, he could stay here forever, lost in all the sensation, but Natasha twists her fingers in his hair and pushes his head down.

"Tease," she gasps, and he laughs against her skin, enjoying the way her muscles tense when his breath hits them. 

He bends lower and runs his tongue over her outer lips. They're smooth, so perfect he thinks she must have shaved yesterday -- in _his_ shower? with his razor? just for him? He spreads her open with his fingers and plants a kiss on her cunt that makes her fingers twist in his hair. Her juices are already dripping down his chin, and he trails his tongue up slowly to take her clit in his mouth. _This_ is something he could do all day. He presses his tongue flat against her and slides it up and down, then teases her with the tip of it until the hard nub is erect in his mouth. She's wet, so wet he can hear her inner muscles clenching around nothing, and he slides a finger into her slowly so that he can feel her moving around him. 

"More," she breathes, and he slides another inside, curving it up against the smooth skin. He sucks down hard on her clit, and when he presses his thumb against the tight ring of her asshole, she comes, clenching herself so hard around his fingers that he groans and pushes himself against the mattress.

Natasha doesn't always like to kiss after oral sex, but this time she pulls him toward her and presses her lips against his. Her fingers are tight around his cock, and he pistons up into her hand as she whispers, "What do you want?"

He leans his forehead against hers and says nothing until she trails a finger along his cheek and says, "You can have anything at all, Matthew, you just have to tell me."

He forgets sometimes that it's okay to ask for things for himself; Natasha knows that, maybe because whoever had trained her had taught her the same. 

"I want you on top of me," he says, lying back on the bed and pull her along with him.

"That's convenient," she mutters against his neck. "I wanted that too."

She grips him tightly and slides his cock up and down between her lips, letting him feel the swollen heat of her cunt and the hard nub of her clit before she sinks down on top of him. She moves up and down slowly, letting him savor her wet heat against every inch of him. Sometimes she clenches down hard; other times, she goes loose and lets him slide almost all the way out of her, just so he can feel the opening of her cunt against his skin. 

His fingers wander across her hips, where he can feel tiny dots of heat where his fingers had left bruises last night. He moves his hands up further, past the bullet wound on her hip, over the hard ridges of her ribs, and up to tease her nipples. He rolls them between his thumbs, feeling them pebble against his skin, and then he slides his hands up to trace her collar bone. He ghosts his fingers over her shoulder, careful of the newer bullet wound, and then down her back, counting the vertebrae one by one. Natasha's breathing harder now, and her hips are moving faster against his. He digs his fingers into her hips, pushing her down against him, and she leans over so he can take one of her nipples in his mouth. While he nips at it, his hands circle her ass and his fingers trace slowly down the cleft between her cheeks. He stops when his thumb reaches her asshole and leaves it there, savoring the way her skin ripples as she gasps. He pushes his finger against the hard circle of muscle, just enough to feel it stretch against his fingers. 

"Come for me, Matt," Natasha breathes in his ear. "Come for me, and I'll come with you." 

She pushes back against his thumb, pushing it deeper inside her, squeezing her muscles around him. The sensation sends him over the edge, and with his free hand, he pulls her hips down hard against his. Her fingernails dig into his shoulders, and they come together.

***

Matt wakes up to warm sunlight on his face. Natasha had fallen asleep almost as soon as she'd come. Matt had accused her of being a stereotype, and she'd accused him of not sleeping enough. That was completely true, and anyway, he could hardly have gotten out of bed when Natasha was pressed against him, warm and sleepy and smelling of sex. He stayed awake long enough to listen to her heartbeat even out, and then fell asleep with his nose in her hair.

They spend a lazy afternoon in his living room with cups of tea and take-out pad thai. He thinks Natasha is curled on the couch, or at least, he enjoys thinking of her that way. There's a book in her lap, that much he's sure of. He can hear the pages turn, and the dusty scent of the library drifts in the air.

He's set up his laptop and Braille terminal on a TV tray, and he's alternating reading New York Times articles about HYDRA with Lexis Nexis articles about whistleblower protection laws, which are a mess. The Obama Administration has prosecuted eight people for revealing government secrets, and it's questionable whether the Dodd-Frank Act would apply to an operative of an international intelligence organization operating without the consent of the US government. And anyway, plea deals work best when you get an offer on the table and _then_ give information; Natasha had given away all her bargaining chips with the stroke of a key. 

He's amazed that someone as shrewd as Natasha hadn't plotted her own salvation, but by all accounts (by which he means the New York Times, the Economist, and the Washington Post), she'd made a split-second decision to save the world without thinking of herself. _Hero,_ he thinks, and marvels at her slow and steady breathing.

The sound of a camera shutter snaps him out of his reverie, and he turns toward Natasha.

"Did you just take a picture of yourself?" he asks. He's aware it's a trend, though it doesn't appeal to him for obvious reasons.

"They're called selfies in the twenty-first century," she says, a smile in her voice. "And yes, I did. It's a tragedy you can't see how hot I look right now."

"Are you wearing clothes you took out of my clean laundry?" he asks. He'd heard her rummaging through it and resigned himself to losing yet another favorite t-shirt.

"Your boxers," she says, "and a gray Columbia hoodie."

"You _smell_ hot in them," he says, moving to sit beside her. He tucks her palm against his and inhales the mingled scents: laundry detergent overlaying the smell of their sex, the faint aroma of his body wash, and their own scents mingled together.

He traces a finger over her collarbone where it peeks out from the half-open zipper. He presses onward to the hollow of her throat, then moves downward until he can feel the swell of her breast just above the zipper's metal teeth.

His cell phone jolts them out of the moment when it exclaims "Karen!" but the distraction is probably for the better -- he's not sure either of them could handle more sex right now, even though he was willing to try. The computerized voice reads off a reminder about his standing brunch date with Karen and Foggy, which he knows he has to attend. Showing up at regular social occasions is part of his tacit truce with Foggy, and his emerging friendship with Karen. Neither one of those things can endure his negligence.

"Will you be okay by yourself?" Matt asks.

Natasha pulls away from him. "Can you feel the air currents move when I roll my eyes?"

Matt snorts. He hadn't really imagined that Natasha needed his continual presence, but he wanted to ask anyway: there were too many times in his life when he would have said he didn't want to be alone, if only someone had asked.

***

Matt may have super senses, but Foggy has some supernatural ability to know when Matt's been hooking up.

"Who is she?" he demands as soon as Matt slides into his seat.

"Who is who?" Matt asks, mostly out of habit. 

"Your orange juice is at two o'clock," Foggy says, "and don't be disingenuous with me. You know better."

"She's an old friend," Matt allows. He'd met Natasha in an alley ages ago, right after he'd finished undergrad and fought in dark alleys for occasional training.

"Do you have a picture?" Karen asks brightly. Her voice fades. "Wait, forget I said that."

She shakes her head and looks down at her plate -- Matt can feel the air currents moving against her hair -- and he waves her apology away. 

"She's hot, right?" Foggy asks, his familiar patter wiping away Karen's awkwardness.

Matt doesn't bother to dissemble. 

"The hottest," he says. He's thinking of her husky voice and muscles moving sensuously under her skin, but he has no doubt she's hot in the way Foggy's thinking of too.

***

Natasha's gone when he comes back from brunch, but he'd expected that much. Having Natasha for a houseguest is a bit like adopting a stray cat; she comes and goes when she pleases, doling out affection whenever she sees fit. She stumbles through his door at half past five, her high heels clattering against the wooden floor more loudly than usual.

"Someone had champagne for brunch," he says when she flops down on the couch beside him. "And for dinner. And for every meal in between."

"If you had Tony Stark's champagne, you'd drink it all day too," she says, and her voice is even huskier than it was this morning.

"Were you yelling today?" he asks, brushing aside a wave of envy. Nobody else was making her scream this weekend, and if they were, it wouldn't be his business.

"I went to karaoke," she says. "Pepper and I sang 'Walk This Way.' I think I like it."

He goes to fetch a glass of water and two aspirin for her, just in case. She drinks it down obediently and lies down with her head resting against his thigh.

He pushes her bangs back from her forehead absently. "I think I'm getting used to the blonde," he says, even though it's pointless to get used to any one mental image of Natasha. By the time it's fixed in his head, she'll have dyed her hair red or pink or brunette.

"Do you have work you need to do?" Natasha asks, yawning.

She's overestimating the success of his practice, but even if he had a line of clients stretching out the door, he'd stay here on the couch with Natasha.

"Not right now," he says, carding his fingers through her hair until she falls asleep.

***

When he comes home from work the next day, Natasha's gone. Matt's not surprised.

***

He'd told Foggy and Karen he couldn't go to happy hour after work, but when he comes home to an empty apartment, he decides to surprise them at Josie's instead of spending the evening alone.

"What happened to the girl?" Karen asks, her voice eager.

"Let me guess," Foggy says, sounding resigned. "It didn't work out."

Matt shakes his head. "She'll come back," he says. Of that, he's certain.

Traces of Natasha will turn up in his apartment over the next few weeks. Maybe an extra bottle of wine on his wine rack, or a special kind of tea in the corner of the cupboard. Once he'd found a Swedish passport and $1,000 in Arab dinars in his toilet tank. His optical character recognition app had figured out the former; the latter required him to Skype with a sighted volunteer who'd asked rather a lot of follow-up questions. He's already found one souvenir today: a postcard on his night stand. He'd scanned it after work, but the OCR software had returned an error message. She'd written it in Russian. Probably there are apps to read Cyrillic script and translate it too, but he'd decided against it. He'd rather leave Natasha as she is: a mystery he's deciphering piece by piece.


End file.
